Mobile devices can support multiple data transfer protocols and provide multiple forms of communication channels. When mobile devices are used for payment transactions, the communication channels (i.e. voice, SMS, mobile web, etc.) may advantageously be used to enhance the security of such transactions by utilizing the available communication channels to authenticate the payment transactions.
Different entities involved in facilitating a payment transaction, may use the available communication channels and data transfer protocols to facilitate authentication of the payment transaction. Which communication channel and data transfer protocol is used may depend on several factors such as mobile device characteristics, regions where the transaction takes place, capability of various entities involved in digesting data communicated via a particular channel/protocol, etc.
In today's global market where financial transactions are performed across continents, the difference in communication standards and unavailability of some communication channels, among other factors, may inhibit an efficient use of various available communication channels of mobile devices in performing and authenticating payment transactions. A user may initiate a payment transaction with a communication channel on his mobile device, but one of the entities responsible for facilitating part of the payment transaction may not support that specific communication channel. Another entity may be able to work with that particular communication channel, but may prefer to use some other communication channel for authenticating the payment transaction.
Therefore, there is a need for systems and methods that can determine various available communication channels that entities involved in a payment transaction can work with, and intelligently choose and utilize the most suitable and supported communication channel for a specific market and user's mobile device.
Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems.